


putting our bones back together

by iskra (kiira)



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, mmmmm post 36
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 14:42:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4923592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiira/pseuds/iskra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>i’m going to die, you want to tell laura, please don’t hate me forever, i loved you so.</p><p> </p><p>they force you to your knees.</p><p>//</p><p>post-36, im falling apart</p>
            </blockquote>





	putting our bones back together

They tried to execute you once before.

It was France and it was so so cold and you screamed, fought like you were going to die.

You weren’t, of course.

/

Vordenberg catches you quickly –– maybe you let him, maybe you don’t care anymore –– and he puts you into horrible, heavy chains.

You think he’s going to execute you there, hoist your pretty, dead head above the screaming crowd and declare his victory in the weak morning sunlight.

He doesn’t, of course.

He’s crueler than that, and the collar chokes you as he drags you to –– drags you to Mother’s house.

Drags you to Laura.

“You want  _me_ ,” you hiss at him in German, “don’t make her watch me die,” and you know she hates you, but: she shouldn’t ever have to see this.

“She has nothing to do with this, please,” you beg. “Please, please, oh god, please,” and he just jerks the collar harder.

/

Mother finds you with the throat of the executioner ripped out, his blood smeared on your neck.

“Darling,” she smiles, “France isn’t big enough for us anymore.”

She picks her way across the scattered bodies –– your carnage, their carnage, her carnage, and places a delicate kiss on your forehead.

“Try not to get yourself caught by those with these,” and she waves her hand at the guillotine, “awful machines again.”

Your stomach plummets.

/

Laura’s got her  _goddamn_  camera on, because if the world’s going to end, she told you once, someone has to know.

 _We’ll all be dead then, babe_ , you told her, and she just shook her head and laughed. Something about the principle of the thing, something sparkling young.

Something there is none of in the chains around your wrists.

It’s become hard to speak, you fought so hard in France.

 _I’m going to die_ , you want to tell Laura,  _please don’t hate me forever, I loved you so._

They force you to your knees.

/

Once, Mother took everything you ever loved; once you were horribly taken, once Mother forced you below the earth to rot.

She stripped you raw first –– she took everything you ever loved, every part of yourself that you hid away in the darkest corners behind your ribs, and shattered it.

You don’t remember most of it most days, it’s little flickers of horror (blood, your hands nailed, a little sister with her chest split open, spilling on the floor of the ballroom, someone washing the blood off your stomach with holy water) but –– you can never truly forget it all.

/

You bow your head and wait for the sword –– make sure you can see Laura’s brown curls.

/

It can never be so easy, you can never truly give up; Laura’s eyes snap when Vordenberg burns and:

     You have died of love for her and she has lost everything.

/

“What are we gonna do now, Carm?” Laura says, half asleep against a bookcase. “I mean, we can’t just stay here, Perry needs our help or like: the real Perry needs our help, not the murder-y new Perry, and  _oh god_  Kirsch is out there and …”

“We’re going to go to sleep, sweetheart,” and she turns light pink.

“Oh. Right,” and she laughs slightly uncomfortably. “I’m just gonna… do that then,” and she curls up between two bookcases, watching you quietly.

“I’m gonna be right here, Laura,” and gesture to where you had dumped a pile of books you had been planning on reading this semester anyways.

“Okay,” she says.

“Okay.”

You think she’s asleep, and you’re halfway through something about power structures and access to literacy when she makes a tiny noise and sits up.

“Was he going to kill you, Carm?”

_Oh._

“He’s dead now,” you say shortly, read the same line over and over and over and  _inscriptions stand for life, or the consciousness regarding one’s own life, or the consciousness regarding one’s own life, or the ––_

Laura has her hand on your arm, and is whispering “Can I touch you,” very quietly.

“You’re the one who just  _killed_  someone for fuck’s sake,” you spit out, and she stiffens a little. “Can we not, for once, talk about me?”

“Yeah, of course,” and she arranges herself against your side. “What are you reading?”

You flip the cover around to show her the title, and she makes a small humming noise.

“Do you have anything more interesting in that pile of yours, Miss Academic?” She doesn’t wait for you to respond, and just starts pawing through your book, wrinkling her nose.

“Why wasn’t my roommate a journalism major?” She sighs as she settles back into your side, trying to read your book over your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” you say after what could be an hour, could be a minute. “I didn’t mean to bring up Vordenberg,” and she shrugs.

“Can we not talk about that right now?”

You mirror her, “Yeah, of course,” and throw your book onto the pile, twist your fingers into her hair.

She sits like that for a while, warm and quiet against you. The library is vast and essentially a trap but –– you have managed not to die, you have managed to love, you have managed to somehow make it through the spring.

“We should go to sleep,” she whispers, and she does not go back to her corner.

**Author's Note:**

> :) here we go (livvmoore.tumblr.com)


End file.
